Data Deposit Box Stores

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The Data Deposit Box backup client installation process includes specifying which directories to protect. The default list of folders, on which the client keeps an eye and automatically backs up, included My Documents, Desktop, Favorites, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Outlook Express. It was easy enough to add other folders, including folders on other drives.
According to Carroll, one of the features on the Data Deposit Box to-do list is support for including or excluding files by type, such as MP3s, which will help users from being surprised by their bills by inadvertently backing up large multimedia files.

Whenever a file in one of the specified directories is closed, the Backup client checks for changes, and sends them to your account, assuming youre online. After the initial backup, the odds are that the amount of new data will be small, and will be backed up almost instantly.

I could configure the clients "Suspend" option, thereby directing the backup client to pause its backup operations when it detects keyboard or mouse activity, and resume when the activity stops. When I was disconnected from the Internet, the backup client waited for the next time I was connected to resume its backup operations. I could also block out particular times not to conduct back-ups.
File Access and Recovery
I could retrieve backed up files either from the Data Deposit Box backup client, or from a Web browser, by connecting to the services Web portal.
I conducted a number of restores and retrievals using the backup client and the Web portal, and found the process gratifyingly easy: the service displayed my machines, categorized into active (currently online and being backed up) and inactive classes.
In order to reach particular files for retrieval, I simply clicked my way through the directory structure. Obviously, it helps to know in which directory path the file(s) youre looking for reside, but the product allowed me to search on filenames and filename wild-cards to locate the data I sought. At this point, the service does not allow for searching within files, however.
While the feature sets of the local backup client and the services Web portal are for the most the same, one important option available only from the Web interface is versioning support.
Data Deposit Box allows users to keep up to 28 versions of individual files. I was able to specify a minimum time between versions, and view on the Web portal the current and time-stamped previous versions of my backed up files available for retrieval. In order to use this feature, I had to enable versioning support from within the backup client.
The Data Deposit Box backup client let me retrieve files or entire directories, but only in their most recent versions.
The current version (as of late June 2007) of the services Web interface limited me to grabbing one file at a time, but according to Carroll, the next version of the Web portal will include a "shopping cart" which will allow users to tag files for download in a single, zipped file.
I did encounter an occasional hiccup during my tests. For instance, on more than one occasion, a file I retrieved through the Web interface was missing its file extension. Also, I occasionally encountered the error message "Sorry, you dont have permission to view this HTML file," and had to log in again in order to complete the retrieval.
The Data Deposit Box service does not auto-delete backed-up files, which is important for rescuing unintentionally-deleted data, but the service does offer a cleanup wizard, which comes in handy for pruning unwanted files.
Daniel P. Dern (dern@pair.com) is an independent technology writer. His Web site is www.dern.com.
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